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Lightning Pod: Lump Sum vs. Dollar Cost Average, Credit Card Points, The Most Interesting Public Market
Episode 10825th July 2025 • FPO&G: Financial Planning for Oil & Gas Professionals • Brownlee Wealth Management
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In this lightning pod, we discuss: dollar cost averaging vs. lump sum investing, credit card points, and which market segment we'd only own if we could only own one. Be sure to listen to the end, where we discuss our thoughts on the most overrated and underrated cities.

For more information and show notes visit: https://www.bwmplanning.com/post/108

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Disclosure: This information is for informational purposes only. Nothing discussed during this video should be interpreted as tax, legal, or investment advice. If you have questions pertaining to your specific situation, please consult the appropriate qualified professional.

Transcripts

Speaker A:

Welcome to Financial Planning for Oil and Gas Professionals, hosted by certified financial planners Justin Brownlee and Jared Machen of Brownlee Wealth Management, the only podcast dedicated to those of you in the oil and gas profession to help you optimize investments, lower future taxes and grow your wealth.

Speaker A:

Learn more and subscribe today @brownlee wealth management.com.

Speaker B:

Welcome back to another episode of FPO NG Financial Planning for Oil and Gas Professionals.

Speaker B:

This week on the podcast we're doing a lightning round.

Speaker B:

We're going to talk about three topics.

Speaker B:

Lump sum versus dollar cost averaging.

Speaker B:

We're going to talk about credit card points and then we're going to talk about if you could invest in one part of the public equity markets for 20 years and only one, what would it be?

Speaker B:

All right, Justin.

Speaker B:

Dollar cost averaging versus lump sum.

Speaker B:

I feel like anyone could go to ChatGPT and just ask ChatGPT that question and it could give you a nice mathematical answer.

Speaker B:

What do you want to talk about?

Speaker B:

Specific to kind of this question that might, that might be less considered or less easy for somebody to Google because there's tons of research on it.

Speaker A:

That's a great point.

Speaker A:

But also if someone does that with ChatGPT, I would guess that the results that they receive from that query would be a very history rich answer.

Speaker A:

Right?

Speaker A:

I think it would include an enormous amount of data and when it does that, it's to jump to the end of this topic and kind of the answer to this question.

Speaker A:

Well, the data is really clear, Jared.

Speaker A:

You need to invest a lump sum and you need to forego the desire temptation to dollar cost average and delay some of your investment.

Speaker A:

And history tells a pretty clear story that the heavy majority of the time, if we look back and you were investing at different points in history, you're going to want to invest the entire lump sum now.

Speaker A:

Also interesting to kind of jump to the end with this topic.

Speaker A:

It's not rocket science why lump sum has historically been better than dollar cost averaging.

Speaker A:

It's literally just that the market has gone up a heck of a lot more than it's gone down.

Speaker A:

But would love to hear your answer.

Speaker A:

Where do we go from there?

Speaker B:

Yeah, I mean, spoiler alert.

Speaker B:

The market skews up, right?

Speaker B:

If it were a coin flip, dollar cost averaging might make more sense, but the distribution of returns is more positive, negative, right at the end of the day.

Speaker B:

So that's really the risk you're making.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker B:

And again, if, if your time horizon is decades, whether you get in at this price or next price, like or, or even 10 lower if you just happen to time that, I think it doesn't really serve you in the, in the long term picture.

Speaker B:

But I think I want to talk about like a couple of tangential things because like, there is a very valid kind of fear and I think it's rooted in, hey, the market feels expensive or things feel elevated.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker B:

Or things feel uncertain.

Speaker B:

A couple things, market always feels uncertain.

Speaker B:

Uncertainty is reality.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker B:

Like as much as we don't want to admit that and also too, I think, you know, hey, we don't know what's going to happen and that's okay.

Speaker B:

We just have to have a sense of optimism that things are going to work out.

Speaker B:

And, and I think the other thing too is you're.

Speaker B:

The other thing is you're a diversified investor, right?

Speaker B:

So like if you look at valuations, which will feed into my answer about what I would own, you know, the US Stock market is above its historical average and Michael Batnik talks a lot about this idea.

Speaker B:

But you know, valuations should be different, right?

Speaker B:

The capital, how un capital intensive Ford Motor Companies is versus a company like Nvidia or a software company like Facebook.

Speaker B:

Like we have never seen technology companies that can have the revenue per employee that these software companies have.

Speaker B:

Right?

Speaker B:

It's a completely different analog.

Speaker B:

Right?

Speaker B:

And so like, maybe, maybe the valuation is warranted.

Speaker B:

But again, if you're a globally diversified and a thoughtfully diversified investor, you're not putting 100% of your money into the most expensive stock market, which on a price to earnings ratio, the US is definitely the most expensive stock market.

Speaker B:

So part of the benefit is if I am actually diversified, I'm going to be buying stuff that might not be overvalued, depending on how you might want to define that relative to what you think is a fair value.

Speaker A:

Okay, so Jared, if I'm hearing you correctly, what you're saying is if you invest in a lump sum, it's not necessarily as risky as it might feel on day one if you're doing it in a diversified manner.

Speaker A:

But if you're investing in a lump sum and you're buying qqq, well, there is a chance that that could go wrong.

Speaker A:

Just like if you buy an oil and gas industry specific etf, there's a chance that could go wrong.

Speaker A:

Or a financials ETF or any specific industry.

Speaker A:

If you're investing a lump sum into a concentrated part of the global stock market, yeah, that is a little bit of a scary proposition.

Speaker A:

But if it's really well diversified across every style of stock, that's a different Story.

Speaker B:

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker B:

And I mean there's some research.

Speaker B:

We'll post that.

Speaker B:

Nick Maggi just keep, he wrote the book Just Keep Buying, has some great research on it.

Speaker B:

It goes back about 20 years.

Speaker B:

But I mean this isn't just a stock story.

Speaker B:

There's a great chart shows it looks at asset classes over the last, you know, 25 years.

Speaker B:

The average underperformance by dollar cost averaging versus just a lump sum investing.

Speaker B:

It's, you know, every asset class, Bitcoin, gold, the US treasury market acquies us so international stocks, emerging market stocks, S&P, 60, 40, you underperform the lump sum investor by, by dollar cost averaging.

Speaker B:

And the percentage varies depending on the volatility asset class and your risk adjusted return.

Speaker B:

What us finance nerds like to call Sharpe ratio is also lower in all those categories.

Speaker B:

So it's, you know, this isn't just a stock story.

Speaker B:

It's just the idea of, hey, if you buy assets, it's really tough to time.

Speaker B:

So you know, there's positive skew.

Speaker B:

You don't know when it's going to happen, which is why you invest in the first place.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker B:

If you had a crystal ball, there wouldn't be any risk and you wouldn't be getting compensated for that risk.

Speaker B:

So it's all about getting in.

Speaker A:

That's right, Jared.

Speaker A:

I also think it's helpful to kind of define what a lump sum is in different examples of how this plays out in reality.

Speaker A:

So, you know, simplest terms is we're talking about pretend you have a million dollars in cash.

Speaker A:

Should you put that $1 million into a portfolio today on day one?

Speaker A:

Or should you, for example, put 100,000amonth for the next 10 months?

Speaker A:

Or maybe it's 250,000 a quarter of the amount each quarter on the first day of the quarter.

Speaker A:

So that's the conversation.

Speaker A:

But the reason I want to get a little bit more specific with examples, Jared, is we do have a lot of clients that two things happen that make them ask the question, should I pursue a lump sum investment or should I change course and go dollar cost average?

Speaker A:

And I would say for retirees, it's when they roll over their 401k.

Speaker A:

And typically in the execution of a rollover, what's going to happen is your traditional IRA is going to get a large sum of money all at once in cash in an ira.

Speaker A:

And then the second example is a pension rollover.

Speaker A:

And in both of those, well, let's, let's Talk about the 401k.

Speaker A:

I don't think there is any case whatsoever to dollar cost average in the vast majority of situations.

Speaker A:

I don't think it's the end of the world, 100% of.

Speaker A:

But by and large it really needs to be a lump sum investment.

Speaker A:

Because your 401k was invested, right?

Speaker A:

It was invested every day.

Speaker A:

It should have been.

Speaker A:

And so then when you roll over to a traditional ira, that is not grounds for you to pull out your money and go to cash and then become a timer and decide when am I going to allocate this?

Speaker A:

In my opinion, that is the same thing as owning, let's say it's a significant brokerage account and you get spooked, you get worried about the economy, the market, geopolitical events, and you sell everything in your brokerage account and you go to cash and you wait for a better time to get in the market.

Speaker A:

I think what I just described in that brokerage market timing scenario is insane and I would strongly urge our listeners to try and avoid that.

Speaker A:

And so I do think it's helpful to point out that that is a point in time where it becomes really tempting to say, hey, what if we just dollar cost average this, it's coming over in cash.

Speaker A:

And, and I would, I would put some caution there.

Speaker A:

But are there other legitimate reasons why you would consider, hey, what's a legitimate reason why someone would have a few million dollars and they have to ask the question, should we allocate it now or should we dca?

Speaker B:

Yeah, I mean if you have uncertainty and expenses like I might buy a second, I just retired, I might buy a second home.

Speaker B:

I don't know if I'm going to, right?

Speaker B:

Like, hey, like the potential outlay could be substantial.

Speaker B:

I don't know what interest rates are going to be, I don't know what percent I want to finance or put down.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker B:

And there's also the person that says, hey, if you think about the pension scenario we talked about, your global asset allocation has changed drastically.

Speaker B:

Because if you think about a pension, if you take the net present value, it's kind of a cash bearing instrument, right?

Speaker B:

It's like a stream of future cash flows with not much price volatility.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker B:

So it feels more like fixed income than stock.

Speaker B:

And so you do get a lump sum.

Speaker B:

And that was essentially functionally 100% fixed income.

Speaker B:

So you kind of, if you invested 100% equity, your household out allocation has changed drastically.

Speaker B:

So it might be worth considering A, before the pension becomes live, your balance sheet, you know, your investable assets should reflect this reality of the pension being There.

Speaker B:

But then once the pension becomes available to you in cash, okay, what, what, you know, okay, what does that mean for my allocation going forward?

Speaker B:

But that should have that conversation and decision should happen before you ever get the pension check.

Speaker A:

It is interesting.

Speaker A:

And Jared, we don't need to create another podcast inside of this podcast, but a rising equity glide path in retirement would also completely influence how you approach that.

Speaker A:

If you already have that, you're comfortable with a scenario where maybe you do invest and the market hits some turbulence, you're ready for that.

Speaker A:

I also think, Jared, the prime example here is someone who's selling a business.

Speaker A:

And I think that's this scenario where there are some legitimate reasons and I think both sides of the debate can make sense there.

Speaker A:

We have some clients that have sold businesses and their children, by and large are graduated, they're out of the house.

Speaker A:

Right.

Speaker A:

Little bit different phase of life.

Speaker A:

We have other clients who much younger and are on the verge of a business sale.

Speaker A:

And that could be a different scenario.

Speaker A:

So I could actually go back on what I've said so far and I could say that I've heard other people say this and I think it's, for the most part, I think it's sound advice.

Speaker A:

If you sell a business and it's a really large amount of money, I don't hate the idea of sitting on it for six months or 12 months and don't rush into any big decisions.

Speaker A:

Don't rush into buying this or that.

Speaker A:

And so I could be convinced.

Speaker A:

But even then, Jared, to be frank, when you, and you do need to allocate, you need to kind of bifurcate.

Speaker A:

When I sell a business, what portion is going to remain invested for my future financial security versus what portion am I willing to spend on homes or expenses or toys?

Speaker A:

The investment portion.

Speaker A:

Even in that scenario, I think you should at least invest half right up front.

Speaker B:

Yeah.

Speaker B:

I mean, and that's the thing.

Speaker B:

If you're not going to listen to us and you think, hey, you know, regret minimization for use, I know I might miss out on upside, but it feels too crazy to get in right now.

Speaker B:

You need a rules and a process.

Speaker B:

Right?

Speaker B:

Like, like if you say, hey, I'm going to dollar cost average over the next two, over the next two years, and let's say you even get, you happen to get it right, which odds are against you and the market's down 30%, how do we know you're going to go in?

Speaker B:

Right?

Speaker B:

Like that's the thing.

Speaker B:

So, like, so, so if you, so even if you're going to ignore us and say, hey, I'm going to do it.

Speaker B:

I know the odds are not in my favor.

Speaker B:

It'll help me sleep well at night and remain invested with my other portion.

Speaker B:

Okay, great.

Speaker B:

Not ideal suboptimal, but okay.

Speaker B:

That makes.

Speaker B:

I hear where you're coming from.

Speaker B:

Build a plan now.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker B:

Because I think it's really easy to rationalize not accelerating it or, you know, doing what it was intended to do, which is not buy at the top.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker B:

But it's, it's honestly scarier to buy at the bottom.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker B:

Because there's a reason that the market's caving in and nobody knows when that's going to be.

Speaker A:

Here's why what you just said is so important.

Speaker A:

So let's go back to what we said at the beginning.

Speaker A:

Majority of the time, lump sum historically beats dollar cost averaging.

Speaker A:

There are times in history where dollar cost averaging has beaten lump sum.

Speaker A:

But, Jared, you know what you have to do to actually beat lump sum in one of those times?

Speaker A:

You have to go ahead and execute the dollar cost average that you agreed on.

Speaker A:

You have to do what you just said.

Speaker A:

So the only reason it would have beaten lump sum is because the market got torched.

Speaker A:

So if you're not willing to execute a lump sum plan, there is a very high chance that when you see the market go down, you're going to get cold feet again.

Speaker A:

I will mention we do have a client who we've just had a tremendous amount of success executing a dollar cost averaging plan.

Speaker A:

And it's a scenario where we have a few clients in natural gas or power trading.

Speaker A:

And the nature of that career arc is that you get really significant bonuses from time to time.

Speaker A:

Right.

Speaker A:

And so, you know, you're getting a really large payout.

Speaker A:

And there was a desire to, hey, should we explore a dollar cost average plan?

Speaker A:

And to his credit, it's been a scenario where he's been fully on board with the idea that we should first partially execute a lump sum investment.

Speaker A:

And so that has been critical, and that's been such a good thing over the past few years.

Speaker A:

But then on the dollar cost average front, to your point, Jared, we have very rigid rules.

Speaker A:

We have very rigid rules on when it will happen, and we don't deviate from it.

Speaker A:

Oh, actually, there's one reason why we would change course and change the dollar cost average plan, and that is only accelerating the investment if the market is down a certain, certain mark.

Speaker B:

Yeah, it's like at the end of the day, dollar cost averaging, the math is not on your side.

Speaker B:

We want to acknowledge that it might scratch an emotional need or it might.

Speaker A:

You know, and that might be legitimate.

Speaker B:

And it might be legitimate, but build the plan because.

Speaker A:

Yep.

Speaker B:

If you have a tough time investing when the market is at an all time high, which means things are probably going pretty decently, it's going to be hard to get excited about investing when things are kind of caving in and the economic environment that creates a bear market.

Speaker A:

Here's the thing.

Speaker A:

Here's the thing.

Speaker A:

Anyone with kids is going to resonate with what I'm about to say to the nth degree.

Speaker A:

When we in the past have taken our kids to Disney World.

Speaker A:

You know what we had to do with our kids?

Speaker A:

We had to create a game plan for all the little shops and stores that they're going to go into.

Speaker A:

We had to create a game plan up front before because when the storm hit and kids just get done with a ride and Disney's trying to sell them some, you know, $40t shirt that I certainly don't want to find a way to shove in our luggage on the way home, we had to have a game plan and we had to stick to that game plan.

Speaker A:

And so, same thing with lump sum, dollar cost averaging.

Speaker B:

Awesome.

Speaker B:

Well, we burned half of our lightning pod matches with that first one.

Speaker B:

So we went over.

Speaker B:

All right, let's go to the next one.

Speaker B:

I think this one will be quick.

Speaker B:

My guess is I have more to say about this than you do.

Speaker B:

Credit card points.

Speaker B:

What do you think, Jared?

Speaker A:

I've got nothing to say.

Speaker A:

I'm kidding.

Speaker A:

I'm really fascinated by that entire world.

Speaker A:

I will be honest with our audience.

Speaker A:

I have not delved into the credit card point world very much.

Speaker A:

So my knowledge is limited.

Speaker A:

I use.

Speaker A:

Oh, Jared, this is embarrassing.

Speaker A:

I use a credit card that you.

Speaker A:

You're the one that got me on this card.

Speaker A:

And it's our main family credit card.

Speaker A:

No idea what it is.

Speaker A:

Chase Sapphire, the good one Reserve.

Speaker B:

Yeah.

Speaker A:

Okay.

Speaker A:

That's where we're at.

Speaker B:

And they just raised the annual fee, so maybe offline, we should talk about whether or not it's still worth renewing.

Speaker B:

But I'm sure you were apprised at all that.

Speaker A:

Oh, I. I definitely knew all of that.

Speaker B:

Yeah.

Speaker B:

So credit cards are interesting because it's like, I.

Speaker B:

So let me caveat this by saying I'm a points fanatic.

Speaker B:

I like.

Speaker B:

And to be clear, it's completely dilutive.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker B:

The amount of time and energy I spend optimizing versus the return it has.

Speaker B:

Like, if I assign like an hour, my hourly wage to that.

Speaker B:

It's super dilutive.

Speaker A:

It's a fun game for you.

Speaker A:

It's your version of me and like professional season tickets.

Speaker B:

That's right, that's right.

Speaker A:

Like I'm a season tickets addiction and I sell them and it works out, but maybe it's a waste of my time.

Speaker A:

That's what this is for you.

Speaker B:

That's right.

Speaker B:

That's right.

Speaker B:

It's the scratches and itch and it feels like I got one over.

Speaker B:

And like, because of how credit payment processing works, we're actually all paying the fee of the credit card of, of credit cards.

Speaker B:

You know, it's passed along to us as the end consumer.

Speaker B:

We're, it's almost like we're getting a little rebate, you know, by using points.

Speaker B:

So, like, can be completely dilutive.

Speaker B:

I would argue most people should do most of their spend on a credit card, assuming they can pay it off monthly.

Speaker B:

And especially my guess is a lot of our listeners are in that boat because there's better purchase prot.

Speaker B:

And points kind of come naturally.

Speaker B:

And there's different, there's a shading in which you could do it, right?

Speaker B:

You can op, you can really over engineer and optimize.

Speaker B:

Where I, I do the arbitrage where like, hey, if I book through Chase's portal, it would cost me a thousand dollars worth of points, but if I book an American Airlines flight on British Airways website, I could book the same thing for half the, for half the amount of points, right?

Speaker B:

So like the, the awesome thing about points is you can really choose your adventure, right?

Speaker B:

It's not one of those things where like, hey, just do something to get some amount of points going and like, it's better for you to think about, hey, am I partial to any airlines?

Speaker B:

Am I partial to any hotels?

Speaker B:

What's the best way to kind of accumulate those?

Speaker B:

And I do the, you know, the, get the big signup bonuses and all that stuff and kind of follow some bloggers to do that so you can, you can get as spicy or mild as you'd like.

Speaker B:

But I do think it's one of those things where you should be getting points and they're really easy to spend and there's, it's like, it's kind of a low hanging fruit, right?

Speaker B:

It's not going to be the, it's not going to be the thing that makes or breaks your financial plan.

Speaker B:

But especially in retirement, if you need something to do, great way to kind of optimize and then take the sting out of out of spending on travel.

Speaker A:

I need to be so much better with this, Jared.

Speaker A:

So you got me onto this Chase Sapphire card maybe two years ago.

Speaker A:

And the entire reason is I wanted to rack up points in a system where I could potentially purchase JSX flights rather than other airlines flights.

Speaker A:

I haven't used the points on one JSX flight.

Speaker A:

Like we haven't gone anywhere.

Speaker A:

So what am I doing over here?

Speaker A:

And I'm pretty sure I'm sitting on a ton of points.

Speaker A:

I think I actually have no idea.

Speaker B:

Well, that gets you, gives you future optionality.

Speaker B:

Right?

Speaker B:

And so it's like, there you go.

Speaker B:

You could just figure them out.

Speaker B:

There's actually people that specialize in helping people spend down points.

Speaker B:

So like there's, there's a service I'm gonna link to the guy, but basically he helps business owners that are sitting on millions of points and then just kind of helps them translate those to like decumulated.

Speaker B:

Because right.

Speaker B:

There is a segment of people that like know the optimization opportunity is there to optimize but don't want to do the legwork.

Speaker B:

There's like actually concierges that can help you do that.

Speaker B:

So if you're a business owner accumulating massive amounts of points, there's, there's a way to do it.

Speaker B:

But yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm deep in the rabbit hole.

Speaker B:

My wife is like, hey, if, if you're, if you're buying X, use this card.

Speaker B:

If you're buying Y, use this card.

Speaker B:

Like, speaking of having a game plan, we have one with points and I think, I think they're, I think they're a great thing.

Speaker B:

And you know, there's a piece of legislation that might make points a little harder to come by.

Speaker B:

So not, not a big fan of that.

Speaker B:

But yeah, I think, I think points are good and it's a good kind of optimization thing, but it assumes you can manage your credit and cash flow responsibly.

Speaker A:

Doesn't Fidelity have a credit card that gives you like 2.1% cash back on everything?

Speaker B:

You know, that's a good question.

Speaker B:

I should know, but I don't know.

Speaker A:

You know, what can we do?

Speaker A:

Maybe a follow up lightning round here?

Speaker B:

Yeah.

Speaker B:

But if you know, any clients have questions about specific cards, I'm happy to, Happy to give my.

Speaker A:

Don't email me.

Speaker B:

Email, email me or I'll send you to one of the, one of the nerdy blogs I follow.

Speaker B:

Okay, cool.

Speaker B:

Points.

Speaker B:

So final thing we wanted to talk about, Justin, you and I were having an interesting conversation offline about if you had to invest in one asset class that's publicly traded, right.

Speaker B:

You could choose there's a crazy number of alternative asset classes.

Speaker B:

We'll just keep it domestic or not even domestic.

Speaker B:

We'll just keep it publicly traded stuff.

Speaker B:

If you had to invest in one segment of the market and go away for 20 years and just, you know, you could, couldn't you went to a remote island, Tom Hanks and cast away, you know, it's just you and a volleyball and then you just get to come back 20 years later.

Speaker B:

What asset class would you want to own?

Speaker A:

You know, Jared, I'm pretty sure I'm the one that came up with this question and I hate this question.

Speaker A:

I really don't like it.

Speaker A:

So for our listeners, let's put some ground rules on this when we talk about you have to pick one part of the market to invest in.

Speaker A:

Think you have four options, U.S. large companies, U.S. small companies, international developed market companies or international emerging market companies.

Speaker A:

And Jared, I'm fine if you want to delineate further and go into value growth within any of those, but that's what we're talking about.

Speaker A:

Here's why I hate this question.

Speaker A:

There's currently an enormous, like a comical premium on US Large cap.

Speaker A:

You have to pay just an incredible, incredible premium for the earnings that you're able to get in U.S. large companies.

Speaker A:

You can buy the same amount of earnings for some international and some small cap.

Speaker A:

Especially if you go into value, you can buy the same amount of earnings in some of those other parts of the global market for a fraction of the price that you have to pay for US Large cap.

Speaker A:

So here's why I hate the question though, Jared.

Speaker A:

20 years is my, that's, that's what's giving me enormous pause.

Speaker A:

I don't know how to answer that.

Speaker A:

If, if we change the question to you have to pick just one area and it's 10 years.

Speaker A:

I'm probably going into a part of the international markets that tilt far more to value and you could make a case to go us small cap value because in a 10 year time period, Jared, I'm going all in on what does the math say?

Speaker A:

What do the numbers say?

Speaker A:

How can I buy the most amount of earnings for the, for the lowest price?

Speaker A:

20 years has given me a little bit of pause.

Speaker A:

So if we change the question to 10, that's my answer.

Speaker A:

Now if we change the question to 30 years or 40 years, at that point you begin to think about existential risk.

Speaker A:

And like are there entire economies Are there entire industries that won't exist in 30, 40 years?

Speaker A:

Are there countries that are in wild, like, like wildly different positions in 30, 40 years than they are today?

Speaker A:

Well, all of the sudden all of those things come into play and so you start to have these existential thoughts of, you know, it's a completely different question.

Speaker A:

So at 20 years, man, I guess what I'm saying is at 30 years, I think I'm running to safety.

Speaker A:

And safety is US Large cap, despite the incredible premium you have to pay to invest there.

Speaker A:

So at 30 years my answer is probably US large cap.

Speaker A:

At 10 years, my answer is some, some form of the global markets with a value tilt.

Speaker A:

20 years, I'm just going to go US large cap.

Speaker A:

And I have such little conviction in that answer.

Speaker B:

Yeah, I mean, but that's, that's a testament to like, what is a long enough time horizon?

Speaker B:

Like it's like, you know, it's, and depending on your time horizon, it changes the answer.

Speaker B:

It, like when you brought, when you brought forward the 30 year question, it made me feel unpatriotic to the thought of saying anything other than America.

Speaker B:

But you know what I mean?

Speaker B:

Like, it just, like it just feels weird to bet against America.

Speaker A:

You're right.

Speaker A:

I want to say one more thing.

Speaker A:

The other reason I said I hate this question.

Speaker A:

I do love this question, Jared, because my ultimate answer is I don't want to do that.

Speaker A:

Like I don't want to make a bet.

Speaker A:

I don't want to make a bet over 10 years, but I sure as heck don't want to make a bet over 20, 30 or 40 years.

Speaker A:

So I feel like this question is a commercial to have exposure everywhere.

Speaker B:

Yeah.

Speaker B:

And I mean, think about the US equity market.

Speaker B:

From:

Speaker B:

So if I had to go international, we'll make it more entertaining.

Speaker B:

And to be clear, I love America.

Speaker B:

I'd pick international value.

Speaker B:

I think one of the things, if you look at the dispersion, the US has always traded it at a premium to international.

Speaker B:

But the spread between US and international is, it's not quite two standard deviations, but it's close.

Speaker B:

So the US relative to international, it's way, way expensive.

Speaker B:

And I just think America has been the best performing economy over the last 100 years.

Speaker B:

But it's also kind of was an emerging economy a hundred years ago.

Speaker B:

And If I think about earnings growing, I think, like, you know, so many companies have so much market share here already.

Speaker B:

Like, I think about consumers coming online in emerging economies, and I think about how bad the narrative is towards emerging economies and international economies because of, you know, to be clear, it's.

Speaker B:

That's why America has a premium.

Speaker B:

Right?

Speaker B:

It's.

Speaker B:

They companies are better here.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker B:

But the problem is that's all baked in.

Speaker B:

So I think just the opportunity set is better.

Speaker B:

And I realized my comment is reflect, and it's awesome because it doesn't.

Speaker B:

This is just entertainment.

Speaker B:

This is not investment advice.

Speaker B:

And I'm not liable.

Speaker B:

I don't have to do this.

Speaker B:

But like, my, My vote of international value expands the range of outcomes.

Speaker B:

Right?

Speaker B:

Like, if I, if I think about you, like, the probability of really, like, like negative returns feels lower for you than it does for me because you're buying a more developed, known quantity.

Speaker B:

But like, my risk appetite and the, you know, the quantitative investor in me says, hey, go.

Speaker B:

Go where the market's out of favor.

Speaker B:

So that's.

Speaker B:

That's probably what I would pick.

Speaker B:

But I realize it's not, you know, it's not a super patriotic answer.

Speaker A:

No, I love it.

Speaker A:

I love it.

Speaker A:

We wrestled with that question.

Speaker A:

That's a good one.

Speaker B:

Wrestled.

Speaker B:

Okay, so we're 27 minutes in.

Speaker B:

We said three topics, 10 minutes or less.

Speaker B:

So I get to ask you one more question that I think is kind of fun, and you could just.

Speaker B:

You could explain as little or as you.

Speaker B:

As much as you want.

Speaker B:

What is the most overrated city and underrated city in America?

Speaker A:

You know, my answer two, three years ago for most underrated city would have easily been Fort Worth.

Speaker A:

But I feel like it's becoming a little more popular, and maybe that's because of Landman Yellowstone.

Speaker A:

All of the Taylor Sheridan shows, I feel like, have brought a little bit more maybe popularity.

Speaker A:

Overrated.

Speaker A:

Should we go with that one?

Speaker A:

What's the most overrated?

Speaker A:

Yeah, my gut answer, and no offense to anyone there, Jared, I think my gut answers may be Nashville, but again, it all goes back to valuation and the price you have to pay for valuation.

Speaker A:

The hype around, it's just out of control.

Speaker A:

You've made this comment, you love northwest Arkansas, but you've made the comment that, hey, it might be a little bit overrated because the hype train is huge, and eventually you gotta see what are the earnings that this hype train is producing.

Speaker A:

And I think maybe Nashville's gotten out in front of their skis a little bit.

Speaker B:

Yeah, I Feel like it's on a bunch of lists and that's kind of a negative feedback loop because you get on the lists by being a good value or kind of a better kept secret.

Speaker B:

Then you get momentum in a lot of people there.

Speaker B:

That creates infrastructure problems and it also makes the things that made a it super manageable kind of less pleasant for me.

Speaker B:

I think most.

Speaker B:

I'll go with most overrated first.

Speaker B:

I'm going to go with Los Angeles.

Speaker B:

I Wow.

Speaker B:

I grew up there, to be clear.

Speaker A:

Okay.

Speaker B:

In a suburb of South LA county, El Segundo, where the second refinery, that's the El Segundo means Spanish, which is the second Chevron refinery town.

Speaker B:

So my oil and gas roots are very deep.

Speaker B:

But I think Los Angeles is just a cluster.

Speaker B:

It's so unbelievably expensive.

Speaker B:

Public transportation is terrible and it's just kind of tough and like there's a lot of pollution and it's a cluster and there's so many more beautiful parts of California.

Speaker B:

Like if I were going to move back to California, it wouldn't be in my top five.

Speaker A:

Okay, we got to hear it list out at least three.

Speaker B:

Okay.

Speaker B:

I would go San Diego and I, I could give you five different places in San Diego, but we'll say San Diego, I'll say Santa Barbara and I also really like San Luis Obispo.

Speaker B:

So yeah, so I like a little smaller, a little slower and I realized that was a wide spectrum I gave and probably the most underrated town I underrated city.

Speaker B:

And I'll go town.

Speaker B:

I think Durango, Colorado.

Speaker A:

Okay.

Speaker A:

I love it, love it.

Speaker B:

I have it.

Speaker B:

I've, you know, started to spend time there and I think so many parts of Colorado are so prohibitively expensive.

Speaker B:

Durango is expensive, but relative to everywhere else, I don't think it's quite as expensive.

Speaker B:

And I think Durango is a special place because it's, you know, got close to the high desert, being near the New Mexico border, just remarkably beautiful.

Speaker B:

And it's got a lot of great.

Speaker A:

History and great food scene too.

Speaker B:

Great food scene.

Speaker B:

And so I think, you know, hopefully I'm not putting it on a list and putting it in the Nashville cycle where we're going to wake up 10 years from now.

Speaker B:

But.

Speaker B:

But I think, I think I'm going to go with Durango.

Speaker A:

So I love that Durango is an amazing place.

Speaker A:

If I give one more.

Speaker A:

This is way out of left field.

Speaker A:

So I've never spent meaningful time in this place.

Speaker A:

I kind of think Birmingham is probably an underrated city.

Speaker A:

Great weather, it never gets cold.

Speaker A:

Super low cost of living and it's within like two or three hours of the beach and well, mountains need to be in air quotes kind of.

Speaker B:

Yeah, yeah, enough mountains, enough.

Speaker B:

Especially compared to us in Texas.

Speaker A:

So that's right.

Speaker B:

Awesome.

Speaker B:

Well, cool.

Speaker B:

Well, we're just over on time, so we'll wrap it up there.

Speaker B:

Love mixing it up with the Lightning Round Podcast.

Speaker B:

Always love to hear from our listeners ideas for future episodes like subscribe, share with a friend.

Speaker B:

We love to kind of hear from you.

Speaker B:

We love the idea for podcasts to grow.

Speaker B:

We love more comments, more feedback.

Speaker B:

We're building this in real time with y', all, so we appreciate anything you could share with us.

Speaker B:

Talk to you soon.

Speaker B:

Thanks.

Speaker A:

Thanks for listening to this episode of the podcast.

Speaker A:

You can subscribe or connect with us at brownleewealthmanagement.com or send ideas for future episodes to podcastrownleewealthmanagement.com thanks and we'll see you next time.

Speaker A:

This podcast is for informational purposes only.

Speaker A:

Nothing discussed during this show or episode should be viewed as investment, legal and tax advice.

Speaker A:

If you have questions pertaining to your specific situation, please consult the appropriate qualified professional.

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